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Treasury Office, November 30, 1790. "Sir, I have submitted in silence to the unprovoked and unmanly abuse which, for some time past, has been directed against me; because it has related to subjects about which the public could not be interested; but to an attack upon my conduct in my profession, and the charge of want of respect and gratitude to the public, I think it my duty to reply. Nothing can be more cruel and unfounded than the insinuation, that I absented myself from the theatre, on Saturday last, from any other cause than real inability, from illness, to sustain my part in the entertainment. I have ever been ready and proud to exert myself, to the utmost of my strength, to fulfil my engagements with the theatre, and to manifest my respect for the audience; and no person can be more grateful for the indulgence and applause with which I have been constantly honoured. I would not obtrude upon the public an allusion to anything that does not relate to my profession, in which alone I may, without presumption, say, I am accountable to them; but thus called on, in the present instance, there can be no impropriety in my answering those who have so ungenerously attacked me, that, if they could drive me from that profession, they would take from me the ONLY INCOME I have, or mean to possess, the whole earnings of which, upon the past, and one-half for the future, I have already settled upon my CHILDREN.' Unjustly and cruelly traduced as I have been upon this subject, I trust that this short declaration will not be deemed impertinent; and for the rest, I appeal, with confidence, to the justice and generosity of the public.

"I am, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"DOR. JORDAN."' -vol. i. pp. 209-211.

The crisis had now arrived, which gave to Mrs. Jordan's history the interest for which that history is alone worth remembering. We mean her connection with the Duke of Clarence. Having thus exhibited to our view, as it were, this land of promise, to attain which, we must say, we performed no very easy or comfortable pilgrimage, Mr. Boaden, with the most provoking indifference, invites us to accompany him into a most delightful dissertation on the ancient history of Drury-lane Theatre,-a theme which he mercilessly pursues through a whole chapter and more. Confound it! has not the man seen, if he has not written, plays,—and how can he so stupidly persevere in wearying his audience? There is only one anecdote to be found in this rubbish which we deem worthy of being gleaned from it.

'On the 31st of January, 1795, under the management of Mr. Kemble, Miss Mellon, the future Mrs. Coutts, and the present Duchess of St. Alban's (for such fortune may well render a man's style giddy), acted Lydia Languish, in the Rivals, and obtained an engagement, as an intended double for Mrs. Jordan. Miss Farren had Mrs. Goodall in the same secondary station, and Bannister, jun. now obtained a locum tenens in Capt. Wathen, who had long figured in private theatricals. But Miss Mellon must not be passed over so lightly. The public do not generally know that

Coutts was not the first banker who had distinguished this young actress. While she was in Stanton's company, Mr. Wright, a banker at Stafford, shewed her great attention; and it was creditable as well as valuable, for his wife and daughters concurred in protecting her. It was there that the Member, Sheridan, saw her, and he might strengthen himself abroad and at home, by giving her an immediate engagement at Drury Lane. He saw her in two of Mrs. Jordan's most favourite characters, Rosalind and the Romp. She was certainly above mediocrity as an actress, though I used to think too careless to do all she might have done. Her figure was elegant in those days, and there was rather a comic expression in her countenance. Had Jordan never appeared, she might have reached the first rank, and been contented with her station in the theatre; few, in any kind of miscarriage, have received such ample consolation. Chance, itself, once contributed a prize of ten thousand pounds to this minion of "Fortune's Frolic." I think there seems to have been a good deal of sagacity in her conduct: she saw her object with that singleness which is necessary to all great success, and made her very disposition itself a herald to her elevation. I never thought her one of those who

"Plan secret good, and blush to find it fame." But a little ostentation may be pardoned in our imperfect virtue.'-vol. i. pp. 276-278.

Mr. Boaden can boast of the distinguished honour of being sought for as an acquaintance by Mrs. Jordan, who seems to have treated him with great confidence, as the following anecdote will prove :

It was about this piece, (Morris's Comedy of the Secret), I remember, we had been speaking, when she told me she had another East Indian offered at her shrine, which she would trouble me to read. I did so, and we talked the piece over at her town residence in Somerset-street, Portman-square. She had not told me who was the author of the play. But there was that in it which merited consideration. I gave her my opinion frankly, and pointed out the indecorum of the interest: however, though not a moral play, it was written evidently, I said, by a man of talent; and, as a benefit piece, preferable to an old one. Mrs. Jordan, here, in confidence, informed me that the Duke had taken the trouble to read it, at her desire also; and that we agreed most decisively in our opinions. She was in charming spirits, I remember, that morning, and occasionally ran over the strings of her guitar. Her young family were playing about us, and the present Colonel George Fitzclarence, then a child, amused me much, with his spirit and strength; he attacked me, as, his mother told me, his fine-tempered father was accus tomed to permit him to do himself. He certainly was an infant Hercules. The reader will judge of the pleasure with which I have since viewed his career as a soldier; and I owe him my thanks for his instructive and amusing journey across India, through Egypt, to England, in the winter of 1817-18, which he dedicated to his late Majesty George the Fourth, when Prince Regent. I shall here merely say, that his fourth chapter in this work is written with great skill, and possesses that interest which arises from actual facts at critical periods; from difficulties surmounted by patience or exertion: abounding in the terrible and destructive, unexaggerated

and minutely detailed. As a moving picture, this division of his work. may, with advantage, stand a comparison with the best passages of those who travel to seek effects.'-vol. ii. pp. 12—14.

We must pass over a great many details of little or no interest, to pursue the history of what may be called Mrs. Jordan's private life. But we beg leave to observe, that the narrative is so strangely put together, the facts of the case are set down with so unusual a disregard of time and order, that we find it extremely difficult to form any thing like a consecutive statement of the latter part of Mrs. Jordan's life. Suddenly we fall upon a series of epistles by Mrs. Jordan, writen in 1806, which relate to transactions in that year, and from the perusal of these we are led on by the author to the events of nearly twenty years before! The recurrence of such perplexities as these is much too frequent to allow us to believe that they are altogether unintentional.

We approach, with the greatest reluctance, that small, wonderfully small, portion of Mr. Boaden's very large book, which treats more particularly of the connection that subsisted between the Duke of Clarence and Mrs. Jordan. As to the propriety of reviving the history of his Highness's juvenile indiscretions, more especially at a time when every good man is counselled by the law to consider him incapable of doing any wrong-it is not, unfortunately, left to us to make a selection. We can only remark that, as we never took a part in any effort to refresh the public memory upon this delicate subject, so would we never have discussed it after the manner of Mr. Boaden. We hold in the highest respect the exalted function of the kingly office-still more do we venerate it in the person of one, whose manly and unsophisticated character converts the abstract sentiment of loyalty to the throne, into a feeling of attachment to the individual who fills it. But whilst we render justice to the virtues of the Sovereign, it is not surely necessary that we should connive at the follies of the youthful Prince. We greatly doubt that the mind which would venture to justify the one, could duly appreciate the other. Mr. Boaden, however, affects to do both, but with what success will be seen hereafter. It is not until about the twelfth hour that he begins a formal narrative of that portion of Mrs. Jordan's history, for which any one would deem it, at this day, worth one moment's consideration. The fawning and prostrate spirit which he brings to this delicate task is seen at the very outset.

Before I can possibly touch,' says the cautious man, upon any disagreement between the Royal Duke and Mrs. Jordan, it seems necessary to look at the position of some other members of his illustrious house, and enquire how far it was calculated to fulfil the wishes of their venerable parent, their condition in the state, or the reasonable expectations of the public.'

We beg to say that there is no necessity for any such inquiry; and we add, that the only reason why Mr. Boaden presumes to

rake up the vices of the two elder brothers in order to lessen, by comparison, the culpability of the third, is to be found in the all important accident, that the two former are in their sepulchres, whilst the last is a living King. Mr. Boaden may depend on it he will gain nothing by his ingenuity. The obsequiousness, which is visible in the following extract, will not fail to strike the reader.

'Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence, came home from very active naval service, with, I believe, no engagement of the heart, and he soon distinguished the charming actress of Drury Lane theatre by unbounded admiration. It is to the credit of his taste that he did so. There is, however, a bias derived from profession, which extends even to the sort of woman likely to strike our fancy. He has looked at the naval character with little discernment, who does not feel that the gay, spirited, unaffected humour of Mrs. Jordan, carried the heart of a seaman by a coup de main. The tones of her voice, the neatness of her figure, the exhilaration of her laugh, but reflect the images of his fancy, when, in the watch of midnight, in the dreary howling of the gale, he cheers his lonely pace with the charms of his native land.

Enquiry, however, would not fail to acquaint him, that Mrs. Jordan was generally supposed to be the wife of Mr. Ford, a barrister, the son of a proprietor of the theatre, though she retained as to the public still, the theatrical name she bore at York. The declared attachment of the Prince, weighed at first no more with her, than to take the opportunity of ascertaining, whether Mr, Ford was sincere in his devotion to her; in which case she thought herself every way entitled to his hand; and, in fact, even upon a mere worldly estimate of the matter, a desirable match, in possession of a positive and progressive fortune, the honourable result of superior, indeed unequalled talents. She at length required from Mr. Ford a definitive answer to the proposal of marriage; and, finding that he shrunk from the test, she told him distinctly, that her mind was made up, at least to one point, THAT, if she must choose between offers of protection, she would certainly choose those that promised the fairest; but that, if he could think her worthy of being his wife, no temptations would be strong enough to detach her from him and her duties. Mr. Ford resigned her, I believe, with legal composure-and she accepted the terms held out by the Duke, and devoted herself to his interests and his habits, his taste and domestic pleasures. Whoever has had the happiness of seeing them together at Bushy, saw them surrounded by a family rarely equalled for personal and mental grace; they saw their happy mother an honoured wife, in every thing but the legal title, and uniformly spoke of the establishment at Bushy, as one of the most enviable that had ever presented itself to their scrutiny.'-vol. ii. pp. 268-270.

The happy mother, exclaims Boaden, was an honoured wife in every thing but the legal title. The contemptible little form of marriage was all that was wanted to complete the domestic character of Mrs. Jordan! Was that all indeed? How easily Mr. Boaden disposes of the matter. To such philosophers as he is, to be sure, the words of a priest can be of but little consequence-they are superfluities which are necessary, peradventure, to satisfy the

ignorant and superstitious herd of men, but they are regarded by the learned and experienced at their true value. Nevertheless, the absence of the small ceremony made all the difference in the world to the poor woman afterwards, when she was unceremoniously dismissed from the bed of her Royal paramour. Mr. Boaden has most improperly abridged the history of this connection. The narrative of a single day's association, between two such persons as the Duke of Clarence and Mrs. Jordan, would have justly demanded twice the space, which Mr. Boaden has allowed to the account of a twenty years' connection. To judge of the final treatment of this woman, it is necessary that we should understand in what light she had been allowed to be regarded by the public, as the companion of the Duke of Clarence. A more striking example of the consideration in which she was held, not merely by the Duke of Clarence, but by his illustrious brothers and the great state officers of the time, cannot be given, than that which took place on the celebration of the Duke's birth-day, in the year 1806. Mr. Boaden seems totally unconscious of these matters, but we copy from the government journals of that period.

"The Duke of Clarence's birth day was celebrated with much splendour in Bushy Park, on Thursday (August 21, 1806). The grand hall was entirely new fitted up, with bronze pilasters, and various marble imitations; the ceiling very correctly clouded, and the whole illuminated with some brilliant patent lamps, suspended from a beautiful eagle. The dining-room in the right wing was fitted up in a modern style, with new elegant lamps at the different entrances. The pleasure-ground was disposed for the occasion, and the servants had new liveries. In the morning the Dukes of York's and Kent's bands arrived in caravans; after dressing themselves and dining, they went into the pleasure grounds, and played alternately some charming pieces. The Duke of Kent's played some of the choruses and movements from Haydn's Oratorio of the Creation, arranged, by command of his Royal Highness, for a band of wind instruments. About five o'clock the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of York, Kent, Sussex, and Cambridge, Colonel Paget, &c. &c. arrived from reviewing the German Legion. After they had dressed for dinner, they walked in the pleasure grounds, accompanied by the Lord Chancellor, Earl and Countess of Athlone and daughter, Lord Leicester, Baron Hotham and Lady, Baron Eden, the Attorney General, Colonels Paget and M'Mahon, Serjeant Marshall, and a number of other persons. At seven o'clock the second bell announced the dinner, when the Prince took Mrs. Jordan by the hand, led her into the dining-room, and seated her at the head of the table. The Prince took his seat at her right hand, and the Duke of York at her left; the Duke of Cambridge sat next to the Prince, the Duke of Kent next to the Duke of York, and the Lord Chancellor next to his Royal Highness. The Duke of Clarence sat at the foot of the table.-It is hardly necessary to say, the table was sumptuously covered with every thing the season could afford. The bands played on the lawn, close to the dining-room window. The populace were permitted to enter the pleasure-grounds to behold the Royal banquet, while the presence of Messrs. Townsend, Sayers, and Macmanus,